T. Rowe Price reports 9 percent increase in profit for third quarter

Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun

T. Rowe Price reported a $270.3 million profit in the third quarter Thursday, up 9.3 percent from the previous year, although the Baltimore-based money manager saw an outflow of investor dollars during the period.

On a per-share basis, the company earned $1, compared with 94 cents for a year earlier. Price exceeded some analyst's expectations for the quarter by 4 cents per share.

Revenue totaled $884.4 million in the quarter ended in September, compared with $769.7 million a year ago.

Macrae Sykes, an analyst with Gabelli & Co. in Rye, N.Y., said the market was reacting to the cash outflows — the second quarter in a row that investors pulled a significant amount of money out.

"It was disappointing," he said.

Price reported $7.4 billion in net outflows in the third quarter, although those were somewhat tempered by $40.6 billion in market gains during the three months. Outflows in the second quarter reached $8 billion.

Those outflows largely came from institutional investors, especially outside the United States, that are changing their strategy, such as reducing risk or opting for indexed instead of Price's actively managed investments, said CEO James A. C. Kennedy. "Periodically, they want to pull back," he said.

Assets under management reached $647.2 billion at the end of September, up from $574.4 billion a year earlier.

Kennedy noted that the performance of the funds continue to do well. For instance, the bulk of Price mutual funds outperformed Lipper averages for three-, five- and 10-year periods, while all of its target-date retirement funds outperformed over a three- and five-year basis.

Price employs 5,554 workers, up 4.4 percent from a year ago. Two new office buildings at Price's Owings Mills campus are opening this quarter. Employees in four other buildings at the campus and, over time, some from Price's Baltimore headquarters, will move into the new offices, Kennedy said.

Kennedy said the company still is weighing what to do about its downtown Baltimore headquarters. The lease on the 100 E. Pratt St. headquarters expires in 2017.

"We are studying our options. It's a quiet time period for us as we do," he said.